


nightmares

by Kuroeia (Empatheia)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Cousin Incest, F/M, Ficlet, Incest, Post-nightmare comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-27
Updated: 2009-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29294583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Kuroeia
Summary: Her eyes saw too much.
Relationships: Hyuuga Hinata/Hyuuga Neji
Kudos: 2





	nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic cross-posted from FFN. Requested by eowyn1 on LiveJournal, drabble post 2009/09/28.
> 
> Prompt: obvious

If Neji were a mountain, amid his stony roots there would be a vast crystalline cavern meant to hold his love.

As a boy, it lay empty and sealed, and if he ever knew it was there he made himself forget.

He is an adult now. He has long since given up pretending not to know. Like rain and rivers love keeps trickling in, but he bails it out with what rotting, badly-made buckets he has. There is room for it, room for half a sea of it, but he is so very afraid of drowning in the dark.

It is the middle of the night. In the room next door, his lady cries out, caught in the claws of another nightmare. It had taken a year of devoted service for her to trust him with the contents of her dreams. Sometimes, he wishes she hadn't. Now he has nightmares too, just as dark and vicious as hers.

It is a constant source of wonder to him that he seems to be the only person who sees what should be obvious to everyone: Hinata's courage in the face of her very real fears. She is the only one who sees what everyone should: all the ways in which the world is trying to kill them, all the ways in which their fellow humans set out to do the same, all the hundreds of thousands of ugly and painful ways they could all die. His self-confidence and willful ignorance had protected him... until he'd asked about her dreams, and she'd told him.

He slips into her room and shakes her gently until she wakes, her face damp and reddened with tears.

"Neji," she whispers, and tilts into his shoulder as if her center of gravity had shifted towards him. "I had a bad dream."

"I know," he murmurs, and wraps her in blankets and his own scarred body until nothing cruel can reach her.

X

**Author's Note:**

> Work is intentionally this length, complete, and will not be updated.


End file.
